I just love Londo and his story or tragedy if you will, and acted exceptionally by Peter Jurasik. Still watch through the entire B5 series from time to time
Everything involving Londo in babylon 5 was a tier better than the rest of the show. Such an original character, with the Machiavellian plots and his finale. So many other characters and plots just seemed generic in comparison.
Stories that didn't live up to their potential are exactly the kind we should be rebooting. Instead of putting your mark on something great that somebody else made, take the baton and start running towards the finish.
agreed. show like battlestar galatical which had just one real season plus one episode in season 2. that was fine to remake cause the story was not completed. Babylon 5 told the entire story and remaking it would only make people compare to the original and find it wanting. It be different if we could not see the original series any time. where are no longer living at a time when we need remake cause the original is lock in a vault.
Babylon 5 is the best sci-fi show. That epic long term story is unbeatable. Dropping hints and plot points that only make sense in the next season. I'm still disappointed that Space Above and Beyond didn't get more that the single season.
babylon 5 did the mystery box concept right. they had drop stuff around just in case that could easily be pick up or modified later season unlike a show like lost that put those boxes out without a clue how to use them.
@@Marveryn One subtle one that springs to mind is "I was told I'd be killed by shadows" in the first season. That could've just been a throw away line never to be referenced again. Or a comment on unreliable fortune tellers. Or something really vague and he ends up killed by someone hidden in shadow. Or, as it was, he got killed by The Shadows. Just that we had no idea who they were in season 1.
@@Valkanna.Nublet right they left themselves room to play on past season while the same time able to ignore it if the plan did not work out cause for an example your main actor had to leave the show cause of health reason and you needed a new one. looking back i can see how those backdoor where there and when they were use or unuse.
One of the reasons I oppose any such remake of any beloved show in this day and age is the almost total lack of quality in personnel in Hollyweird, to the point that even mediocre stuff is praised for the relative quality. In this case, for either show, I would add the decreasing life experience available to the studios. Nobody there knows how anything is done IRL, only what they see in other Tinseltown products. Both of these shows need verisimilitude and there appears to be very little ability to figure out where it comes from.
The Chigg "Red Barron" episode was my favorite of Space Above and Beyond. B5 has so many great episodes, I cannot choose. Overall, the character arcs make the show worth watching. Perhaps Vir getting what he wished for regarding Morden is my favorite moment....dark humor, but also very satisfying.
I have no desire for a reboot of B5. I agree that JMS told his story, though I would love to read the unrealized Crusade scripts, the story is self contained. SAAB has a story yet to tell.
If you like military scifi you should. Check out, "Hammers Slammers". The series was envisioned when the author saw Star Trek back while serving in Nam.
A reboot idea for SAAB becomes more interesting when you remember that it takes place in a future timeline of the X files/Millennium/Lone Gunman/Strange Luck universe.
If Space Above and Beyond does get a reboot, it would be nice to see it do what Battlestar Galactica did, which is to go from a series that lasted only one season in its first go around, only to become a multi-season hit on the second try. The trick is selecting a theme that will resonate in the modern world. 1970's BSG is often described as escapist fare that was cashing in on the popularity of Star Wars. The later incarnation definitely had a post 9/11 sensibility. What could they do to Space Above and Beyond to make it relevant in today's world?
Interesting to see if the algorithm supports another good video on above and beyond. another great video, many thanks. Maybe a video on different countries approaches to TV science-fiction. If you think of the early 70s Italian inspired Jerry Anderson production like space 1999, or the very depressing apocalyptic 1970s in the UK like survivors or Blake 7, or some of the more experimental work coming out of France in the 70s and 80s - would love to hear your take on that.
They should not touch B5. Unless its a spin-off or another side story. I do agree that Space Above & beyond needs a reboot. However, it needs to be a gritty character driven storyline about soldiers or pilots fighting a Hard-Science interstellar war.
Food for thought. One idea I had about how to reconcile the problem of the characters being both fighters and grunts is to have them in mini-mecha; think modular power armor that fight in space an on land (a cross between the Valkyries of Macross and Starship Troopers). I was lucky enough to be able to watch both on British TV, which wasn't as bad as the situation in America. I remember the SAAB episode 4: Mutiny as being a real standout, but then, as you say, the series lost its way.
The 90s animated series Exo-Squad navigated this well. IDK if you were thinking of that series when you made this suggestion, but it immediately sprang to my mind. Granted I feel like e-frames (aka mini-mechs) would have been very cost prohibitive to make in live action, much moreso than the starfighters.
yeah you can always say like star trek: out training is so fantastic that each man (and woman) is uomo universale... but i think its a bit flimsy argument. just give them separate roles.
Another great video. Just want to pop in and say that this is the channel I have come to look forward to weekly. The Mad Max and Rollerball videos (among many) are *chef's kiss*.
You've sold me on your premise: reboot SAAB, not B5. The question is: who could be trusted to reboot a show like SAAB in today's environment? B5 still has the devotion and care of its creator, Mike Straczynski. Have Glen Morgan and James Wong expressed any interest at all in taking another crack at SAAB?
agreed. if i had to choose one above and beyond would be better for a reboot but only if main characters would have clear roles and not be tankers and pilots and everything and only if they would set to finite arch. would it be 3 or 5 seasons doesnt matter as long as its clear goal.
Space had a real issue in that it couldn't decide if Our Heroes were starfighter pilots or mobile infantry. Granted I think behinds the scenes negotiations and politicking from one JMS is a huge reason why B5 was able to bang out the full 5 seasons, ensuring its enduring legacy, whereas Space: Above and Beyond is only known to 90s scifi nerds.
Cost is a major issue as well. An episode of B5 ran about $850,000 for its whole run. An episode of SAAB ran $2.5 million, which is a HELL of a lot of money in the mid-90s
@@mahatmarandy5977 Yeah I have to admit JMS was a master of low budget TV production- setting the show mostly in one place with a handful of reusable sets helped a lot too
@@Canoby And B5 had finalized scripts earlier in the season than other shows which meant they didn't have to pay as much overtime labor costs to build the relatively few new sets they needed.
Great video again. I never really got into Space Above And Beyond. One of the issues was I never really connected with the characters. But you raise a good point at the "they created invirtoes as another form of slave race". I did see the final episode, and by the end, it does feel like maybe we shouldn't have been cheering on the human side this whole time.
neither needs rebooted, we have plenty of other scifi stories to tell. Babylon 5 told its story in a low budget way that was overly full of filler, but it did it and Spave above and beyond, in my opinion, requires so many alterations to "fix" you might as well be telling a different story. So lets encourage development of one of the thousands of good stories that haven't had a chance instead, I mean we still have at least 30 of philip k dick's stories that haven't been made into movies =P
I found that Space Above and Beyond, something I loved and still re-watch, was much more an episodic show rather than B5 which was well ahead of it's time with a long range plan on where everything was going. As example, SAaB was the original Battlestar Galatica, while Babylon 5 was the re-imagining. Both shows were products of their time, binge watching really wasn't something that was known to happen so SAaB made sense as episodic, while Babylon 5 was as stated much ahead of it's time, in that you can and likely should have seen it regularly and not out of order. I would absolutely love Space Above and Beyond remade to today's standards and hate for B5 to be remade.
I agree with the conclusion, SA&A deserves a reboot, a chance to actually get to show what it wanted to do. B5 reboot will have to fight against the original already being a complete, and much loved, story.
The fighter pilots also being infantry/commando teams kind of makes sense with things for it. Being able to slip in and cause havoc before going into the air or combining things does make sense with the setup. It's also something that became relatively common in Star Wars, especially in the X-Wing novels
except it cost 5 to 10 times more to train a bog standard navy pilot than it costs to train a Delta Force operator. Your either a good pilot or a good infantryman, you can't be both. We already learned this from pilot training in that you are either a good air to air specialist or a good air to ground specialist, the pilot who trains to do both will usually get shot down by the guy who spends 80% of his/her training time for the air to air fight and will lose to the pilot who specializes in Air to Ground attacks.
@@pogo1140 The problem is when getting people into position for things either way. Someone able to fly themselves into the area to handle things is more useful than adding more people to the group to fly them in and out along with the people for the ground operations. Add in combined force abilities for tactics and it makes a lot of sense there as well. On the Earth, a focused one works more since there are a lot of other ways into the area...with interplanetary, you lose all of those
Fox has a storied history of killing the sci-fi series it green lights. SAAB, Firefly, and I’m sure there are others I’m not remembering. While I would totally watch a well done above and beyond reboot, part of me feels like we already got that, at least aesthetically, with the Galactica reboot.
Werewolf, Millenium, Almost Human, Dollhouse, Dark Angel, Terra Nova, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. Fox is a veritable graveyard of sci-fi/fantasy shows that deserved better.
The only reason why B5 and the reboot talk is really getting any support from people is because JMS is in control of it. And the only reason he is even interested in it is because he feels there is more to the universe than what he told last time, so feels there is more to the story, and has 30 years of more storytelling experience behind him that can make him shape and tell a better story than what he told in the past. It is for those reasons it has my interest, but I await to see if it holds my attention. Saying that, I would love to see Space: Above & Beyond get some attention and love, and not forced out because X-Files was big and it had some small connection to that. Because as Harsh Realm showed, and what Breaking Bad was able to shake off from, having been linked to that show was not a sign of success for something.
This is an interesting analysis. I saw Space Above and Beyond when it was on TV. I have not seen it since then. I would love to re-watch it with my adult eyes. Like many other things, please do not re-boot this. I remember at the time being baffled that every episode had them switching between being pilots or infantry. I agree that it seemed divided between being a story about the "nipple necks" or a war story. It also seemed to have elements of the original Battle Star Galactica in it as well. Let's just cut our losses and make a new story.
Unfortunately, B5 is the one that will be (and, I believe, currently is being) rebooted - and it's precisely _because_ the original got 5 seasons, told a complete story, and (most importantly) left a devoted fanbase. That makes it superficially a safer bet for executives who are searching desperately for "safe" in a media environment that has seen so many high-profile failures in recent years that they've actually coined a new term, "flopbuster," to describe the phenomenon.
Unless the reboot is as good and as faithful to the original as the Fallout series, this fan will prefer the original, despite its flaws. There's just no way to replace Jurasik, Katsulas, etc. I never even saw Space:Above and Beyond aside from a commercial.
@@keithsavagelives agreed unless the original is heavily flaw in some way. cheap special effect. a lot of weak episode but overall a central solid premises. they will always be compare to the original and be view more harshly than a completely fresh show.
Your depth of knowledge in media, history, and philosophy is admirable. Your prose and presentation is quite enjoyable. I have watched about a dozen of your videos thus far and I can feel you gathering momentum toward a certain vision of political and economic life, but I am not sure what that is. It feels like it is in the orbit of classic American libertarian or perhaps Randian Objectivism or even Anarcho Capitalism. Do you have a video where you lay out your larger intellectual project?
I could not agree more. I am sick of remakes of things that were good or great. We need more remakes of flawed things with good ideas to tease out. I think of the 80s B movie remakes such as The Thing or The Fly.
SABAB does not need a reboot. It needs a sequel! It's been 20-30 years. The war with the Chiggers wound down after a few years, but never really went away. It has become a dull background of unpleasantness, dragging on through small border skirmishes and territorial dispute raids. The sequel show would examine the effect of decades of normalizing warfare on a populace and their new recruits who have grown up always knowing peace despite having spent their entire lives "at war." Also probably an episode about the failed withdrawal from Afghanistan.
I agree with you on SAAB needing the reboot. The post 9-11 trope has been done to death with RDM Battlestar Galactica being the winner. Exploring the numbing, arrogant jingoism of that era would be welcome and, tbh, not explored enough in any media. Plus, maybe PTSD and other psychological effects of being a soldier in a capitalist/totalitarian society. Where one's self worth is measured by what one have's and "Are You Okay?" pandering. Yeah, and fascism.
Also the writers of SAAB loved punk rock. X and the Ramones jammed into episodes. Imagine what could happen with Bad Religion and Pennywise shoe horned in. Sigh it's fun to dream.
I Agree 100%. SAAB is the one to reboot. Maybe even to diversify a bit. Dedicate characters to MI and fly boys, let the ground pounders butt heads with the flight jocks in the mess. Dedicate pilots to combat roles. Heck lets even take it one step further and make the infantry characters all be enlisted or at least NCOs and let the stick wagglers stay junior officers to create more tension and rivalry. If you want to stick with the WWII pacific type narrative that makes it even more fun. Allowing you to tell multiple intertwining stories about multiple groups of complex characters all interwoven together. I'd buy that for a dollar.
In Infantry units all the soldiers and NCOs are enlisted except for the Platoon Leader who is an officer.I was in infantry units on deployments to Iraq,but,we never had an officer as a platoon leader,it was usually an E-7.
No on the Reboot. Those are all turning up to be AWFUL these days. They should have separated the groundside from the aviation side, but little brother only gets two episodes I guess. 💀
You’ve really converted me into a Space: Above-and-Beyond-head. So much so that I don’t even want to actually watch the show for fear of experiencing the same disappointments you did 😂
I remember watching and loving both of these shows, when they first aired. Unfortunately, I have lived long enough to see a great many of their warnings go unheeded, and many of their authoritarian governmental problems become real.
I very much agree with your conclusions about why B5 succeeded and SAaB didn't, and I also agree that I'd rather see a Space remake than a B5 one. Alas, B5 has momentum, a track record of profitability, and interest from the central storyteller - and SAaB hasn't. So the B5 remake is probably going to go forward, and the Space one... is more dubious.
Did you have any opinions on Farscape? It was by far the most engrossing of 90's scifi "Deathwalker" was the best of B5. I identify with Jha'dur on so many levels. Baron von Chigtoffen was cute.
I'd love to see what you have to say about Earth 2. I think that's another case of great premise/ good but neglected execution. And equally ripe ground for a topical reboot.
The rebooting failures can work very well if done right. There's an anime from the late 70's called Mobile Suit Gundam. One of the episodes was so bad it's not included in most ways to watch the series. What did they do, redid the episode into a pretty good movie a few years back. So it has been done, and can work very well. SAAB could be awesome if done by the right people. But I think it's way too late now. It'll just be a rehashed "War bad, government evil" show with the hottest young rising stars if done now. And that's best case. But, if done well, and has four or five seasons and can actually tell the war well, it could be awesome. Say West becomes one of the pilots at the beginning and by the end he's earned a Squadron XO post. Or Hawkes winding up in spec ops. He's the character we follow at the beginning of a campaign since he's the one doing recon. Could be amazing.
Babylon 5 is in my mind one of the best Sci-fi shows ever made even if it is very Star Trek-ish. Space Above and Beyond had flaws but a lot of promise and a good cast. I think both could have been great with a bit more money. Strangely I think to a modern audience Space holds up much better than Babylon 5, Seaquest, many episodes of the X files, or many movies of the era.
B5 has been done, and in parts done well. SAAB seems like a franchise that’s kind of lost. Lots of elements that could be used, but no need to keep the bones or skin, just the heart and liver.
I agree that SAaB is a pretty good candidate for a reboot. I actually disagree with come of your critique of the show. But it clearly didn't manage to do everything it could have. B5 told a whole story. It wasn't perfect, and a B5 reboot could be flashier and maybe even better. But I don't have a hole in my heart wondering what B5 would have been in season 2,3,4 as it got refined. SAaB is exactly that, a solid start of a first draft that left me wanting more. A reboot could really deliver on what the original never had the chance to do. Networks tend to make the mistake of rebooting stuff that has no new ground to cover, just because the original was successful and people will recognize the name. Those sorts of reboots are pretty much never successful. But those middling successes are what should be the focus of a reboot. Battlestar Galactica was one of the greatest reboots of all time for exactly that reason. The OG had some fun bits and pieces, but it also had major issues and constraints and only one season, and it left the audience wanting more.
I watched SAAB when it first came out, and skipped B5 initially because compared to TNG, it looked kinda crappy. It wasnt until a few years later when i got laid off, i started watching it on scifi out of boredom. Once i got past the TOS vibe and odd CG, i became a total convert. The storytelling was a bit of a revelation to me, and i didnt really follow ST much after that. SAAB was great early, but they tried to tie together the "command level" and "grunt level" perspectives, and the story seemed to be trying to shoehorn too many arcs together. It was kinda jarring, and made it feel kinda all over the place.
What about a prequel for Babylon 5, set in times of Dilgar War? It could be grete examonation of Humanity rising from backward civilisation to one of the powers in our part of Galaxy.
As a B5 fan, i don't want a reboot: I want an Expanded Universe. Humanities first steps into the stars, The Dilgar War, Crusade done right, etc. Leave the core story alone.
especially for Space: Above and Beyond. for B5, series 5 and the "direct to dvd"-movies dried the possibilites of a continuation out. (even the ranger-movie - those knowing the dtd ...will be disappointed, no matter how good the show is)
Space Above and Beyond was just ok at best. The only really good original episode was the one mentioned here "Who Monitors the Birds". It was a cool concept with good story and made sense. The whole pilots and ground pounders combined was just stupid. I understand budget constraints of a TV show but they could have just split the characters between pilots and infantry and had them interact in some episodes when they ferried the infantry to a planet or in the mess hall and such. Babylon 5 was great story telling from start to finish. I agree that they could give Space Above and Beyond a reboot but with better writers and have a general over arching story for the series and not just Star Trek like single shows.
The problem of any reboot of Babylon 5, that I personally would find acceptable, is that so many of the actors have passed away. And I'm sorry, but I don't want to see any actors taking on roles that I identified with another. Mira Furlan was made for her role and she is only one of many. Please let B5 rest in peace as it is. It's all still available on DVD and streaming so what's the problem?
Space Above & Beyond (SA&B) was inconsistent. To risk trained pilots as infanteers was always grating. Quite insane. Babylon 5, despite it's problems was near perfection in the round. While I would be concerned about either being remade for a modern audience, I would not mind SA&B getting another swing at it, with good writing that avoids presentism. I fear that would be beyond current writing rooms. A reboot of Babylon 5 would almost certainly detract. They could (very easily and almost inevitably) do worse than redo the show changing nothing but the CGI scenes. While that is never going to happen, the way the show was shot would make that easy.
SAaB was not in the same league as B5. Far inferior sets, aliens, characters, actors and plot. I particularly hated the ridiculous way that the pilots were also marines. I really wanted to like it, but never missed it once it finished
I don't think any of these two series should be rebooted. B5 became cult. So did Space: Above and Beyond. Especially with todays restrictions of things they can do and can't do, all the narratives that are force-fed into the storys; it would be a lost cause and just alienate (pun intended) fans of the original versions without gaining as many (or more) new ones to make the show work. As it happened with so many reboots in the recent years.
I hate to burst anyone's bubble prematurely. However these are just going to be woke written by a non experienced writer that will absolutely refuse to watch the source material because they are to good for that and will not allow it to influence their message they are going to be putting out.
And you dont think the originals was woke?????? lets see righwingers are wrong fascist bad, women can be in combat and do everything men can do and so on, YES THEY WHERE WOKE ALSO. Maybe stop hating women and stop being a rascist
I just love Londo and his story or tragedy if you will, and acted exceptionally by Peter Jurasik. Still watch through the entire B5 series from time to time
it was fantastic. but can it get its magic done second time? it may be better to left there.
Everything involving Londo in babylon 5 was a tier better than the rest of the show. Such an original character, with the Machiavellian plots and his finale. So many other characters and plots just seemed generic in comparison.
Can't have londo w/o g'kar. They are the yin/yang of the story.
Their stories are almost but not quite perfect inversions of each other.
Londo & G'kar had some of the best & profound moments of the entire series.
Stories that didn't live up to their potential are exactly the kind we should be rebooting. Instead of putting your mark on something great that somebody else made, take the baton and start running towards the finish.
agreed. show like battlestar galatical which had just one real season plus one episode in season 2. that was fine to remake cause the story was not completed. Babylon 5 told the entire story and remaking it would only make people compare to the original and find it wanting. It be different if we could not see the original series any time. where are no longer living at a time when we need remake cause the original is lock in a vault.
Babylon 5 is the best sci-fi show. That epic long term story is unbeatable. Dropping hints and plot points that only make sense in the next season.
I'm still disappointed that Space Above and Beyond didn't get more that the single season.
babylon 5 did the mystery box concept right. they had drop stuff around just in case that could easily be pick up or modified later season unlike a show like lost that put those boxes out without a clue how to use them.
@@Marveryn One subtle one that springs to mind is "I was told I'd be killed by shadows" in the first season.
That could've just been a throw away line never to be referenced again.
Or a comment on unreliable fortune tellers.
Or something really vague and he ends up killed by someone hidden in shadow.
Or, as it was, he got killed by The Shadows. Just that we had no idea who they were in season 1.
@@Valkanna.Nublet right they left themselves room to play on past season while the same time able to ignore it if the plan did not work out cause for an example your main actor had to leave the show cause of health reason and you needed a new one.
looking back i can see how those backdoor where there and when they were use or unuse.
One of the reasons I oppose any such remake of any beloved show in this day and age is the almost total lack of quality in personnel in Hollyweird, to the point that even mediocre stuff is praised for the relative quality. In this case, for either show, I would add the decreasing life experience available to the studios. Nobody there knows how anything is done IRL, only what they see in other Tinseltown products. Both of these shows need verisimilitude and there appears to be very little ability to figure out where it comes from.
Another thing, at least on the b5 side, is I'm really hopeful but wary after the rangers movie.
Jms rather screwed the pooch on that one.
The Chigg "Red Barron" episode was my favorite of Space Above and Beyond. B5 has so many great episodes, I cannot choose. Overall, the character arcs make the show worth watching. Perhaps Vir getting what he wished for regarding Morden is my favorite moment....dark humor, but also very satisfying.
“Abbandon all hope but butt.”
I have no desire for a reboot of B5. I agree that JMS told his story, though I would love to read the unrealized Crusade scripts, the story is self contained. SAAB has a story yet to tell.
Damn it, this is making me want to watch Space Above and Beyond again...and I know it's going to break my heart not having more seasons.
Networks have a way of cutting the wheat and keeping the chaff.
If you like military scifi you should. Check out, "Hammers Slammers". The series was envisioned when the author saw Star Trek back while serving in Nam.
Great series. I'd also recommend Jerry Pournelle's Co-Dominum series; specifically Falkenburg's Legion.
A Babylon 5 reboot would only be tolerable if they used the original scripts for most episodes, and if the actors were damn good.
A reboot idea for SAAB becomes more interesting when you remember that it takes place in a future timeline of the X files/Millennium/Lone Gunman/Strange Luck universe.
What?
Could you elaborate on that, please?
Well it was written by the same crew that wrote X-files/Millennium… with the added conspiracies. So I can see it.
I like the idea of rebooting shows or movies that had unrealized potential rather than ones that were successful or at least ran their full course.
That's why Battlestar Galactica worked in my opinion
Wearing out the hammerheads by repeatedly nailing it for 9 minutes straight. Spot on.
If Space Above and Beyond does get a reboot, it would be nice to see it do what Battlestar Galactica did, which is to go from a series that lasted only one season in its first go around, only to become a multi-season hit on the second try. The trick is selecting a theme that will resonate in the modern world. 1970's BSG is often described as escapist fare that was cashing in on the popularity of Star Wars. The later incarnation definitely had a post 9/11 sensibility. What could they do to Space Above and Beyond to make it relevant in today's world?
War on Terror?
Invasion of Ukraine?
I'm a fan of both shows.. Given the state of reboots these days, it's ok to be scared.
Resurrecting the Swedish automaker SAAB is what I get from the comments, and I couldn't agree more.
Interesting to see if the algorithm supports another good video on above and beyond. another great video, many thanks. Maybe a video on different countries approaches to TV science-fiction. If you think of the early 70s Italian inspired Jerry Anderson production like space 1999, or the very depressing apocalyptic 1970s in the UK like survivors or Blake 7, or some of the more experimental work coming out of France in the 70s and 80s - would love to hear your take on that.
They should not touch B5. Unless its a spin-off or another side story.
I do agree that Space Above & beyond needs a reboot. However, it needs to be a gritty character driven storyline about soldiers or pilots fighting a Hard-Science interstellar war.
Not sure if America is ready or willing to hear SAAB's message nor B5.
Soo happy I got both series on DVD
Food for thought. One idea I had about how to reconcile the problem of the characters being both fighters and grunts is to have them in mini-mecha; think modular power armor that fight in space an on land (a cross between the Valkyries of Macross and Starship Troopers).
I was lucky enough to be able to watch both on British TV, which wasn't as bad as the situation in America. I remember the SAAB episode 4: Mutiny as being a real standout, but then, as you say, the series lost its way.
The 90s animated series Exo-Squad navigated this well. IDK if you were thinking of that series when you made this suggestion, but it immediately sprang to my mind. Granted I feel like e-frames (aka mini-mechs) would have been very cost prohibitive to make in live action, much moreso than the starfighters.
yeah you can always say like star trek: out training is so fantastic that each man (and woman) is uomo universale... but i think its a bit flimsy argument. just give them separate roles.
@@Canoby Never saw Exo-squad, but it works for me. Nowadays the cost shouldn't be so prohibitive.
Another great video. Just want to pop in and say that this is the channel I have come to look forward to weekly. The Mad Max and Rollerball videos (among many) are *chef's kiss*.
Another insightful and engaging piece - thanks!
You've sold me on your premise: reboot SAAB, not B5.
The question is: who could be trusted to reboot a show like SAAB in today's environment? B5 still has the devotion and care of its creator, Mike Straczynski. Have Glen Morgan and James Wong expressed any interest at all in taking another crack at SAAB?
Netflix could pull it off with the right team. Their Asian stuff has production through the roof.
We could always ask JMS to have a crack at a SAAB reboot.
agreed. if i had to choose one above and beyond would be better for a reboot but only if main characters would have clear roles and not be tankers and pilots and everything and only if they would set to finite arch. would it be 3 or 5 seasons doesnt matter as long as its clear goal.
Space had a real issue in that it couldn't decide if Our Heroes were starfighter pilots or mobile infantry. Granted I think behinds the scenes negotiations and politicking from one JMS is a huge reason why B5 was able to bang out the full 5 seasons, ensuring its enduring legacy, whereas Space: Above and Beyond is only known to 90s scifi nerds.
Cost is a major issue as well. An episode of B5 ran about $850,000 for its whole run. An episode of SAAB ran $2.5 million, which is a HELL of a lot of money in the mid-90s
@@mahatmarandy5977 Yeah I have to admit JMS was a master of low budget TV production- setting the show mostly in one place with a handful of reusable sets helped a lot too
Even watching it as a kid who knew nothing about the military, this struck me as strange.
@@Canoby And B5 had finalized scripts earlier in the season than other shows which meant they didn't have to pay as much overtime labor costs to build the relatively few new sets they needed.
@ Oh certainly; JMS was crazy well organized plus knew how to make the most of relatively limited resources
Great video again. I never really got into Space Above And Beyond. One of the issues was I never really connected with the characters.
But you raise a good point at the "they created invirtoes as another form of slave race".
I did see the final episode, and by the end, it does feel like maybe we shouldn't have been cheering on the human side this whole time.
neither needs rebooted, we have plenty of other scifi stories to tell. Babylon 5 told its story in a low budget way that was overly full of filler, but it did it and Spave above and beyond, in my opinion, requires so many alterations to "fix" you might as well be telling a different story. So lets encourage development of one of the thousands of good stories that haven't had a chance instead, I mean we still have at least 30 of philip k dick's stories that haven't been made into movies =P
I found that Space Above and Beyond, something I loved and still re-watch, was much more an episodic show rather than B5 which was well ahead of it's time with a long range plan on where everything was going. As example, SAaB was the original Battlestar Galatica, while Babylon 5 was the re-imagining. Both shows were products of their time, binge watching really wasn't something that was known to happen so SAaB made sense as episodic, while Babylon 5 was as stated much ahead of it's time, in that you can and likely should have seen it regularly and not out of order. I would absolutely love Space Above and Beyond remade to today's standards and hate for B5 to be remade.
I agree with the conclusion, SA&A deserves a reboot, a chance to actually get to show what it wanted to do.
B5 reboot will have to fight against the original already being a complete, and much loved, story.
Caught between tick and tock
The fighter pilots also being infantry/commando teams kind of makes sense with things for it. Being able to slip in and cause havoc before going into the air or combining things does make sense with the setup. It's also something that became relatively common in Star Wars, especially in the X-Wing novels
except it cost 5 to 10 times more to train a bog standard navy pilot than it costs to train a Delta Force operator.
Your either a good pilot or a good infantryman, you can't be both.
We already learned this from pilot training in that you are either a good air to air specialist or a good air to ground specialist, the pilot who trains to do both will usually get shot down by the guy who spends 80% of his/her training time for the air to air fight and will lose to the pilot who specializes in Air to Ground attacks.
@@pogo1140 The problem is when getting people into position for things either way. Someone able to fly themselves into the area to handle things is more useful than adding more people to the group to fly them in and out along with the people for the ground operations.
Add in combined force abilities for tactics and it makes a lot of sense there as well.
On the Earth, a focused one works more since there are a lot of other ways into the area...with interplanetary, you lose all of those
Fox has a storied history of killing the sci-fi series it green lights. SAAB, Firefly, and I’m sure there are others I’m not remembering. While I would totally watch a well done above and beyond reboot, part of me feels like we already got that, at least aesthetically, with the Galactica reboot.
Sliders was another show that was great until Fox decided to be Fox.
Werewolf, Millenium, Almost Human, Dollhouse, Dark Angel, Terra Nova, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. Fox is a veritable graveyard of sci-fi/fantasy shows that deserved better.
The ads for B5 were pretty common here in the UK, that probably explains why it did well here.
The only reason why B5 and the reboot talk is really getting any support from people is because JMS is in control of it. And the only reason he is even interested in it is because he feels there is more to the universe than what he told last time, so feels there is more to the story, and has 30 years of more storytelling experience behind him that can make him shape and tell a better story than what he told in the past.
It is for those reasons it has my interest, but I await to see if it holds my attention.
Saying that, I would love to see Space: Above & Beyond get some attention and love, and not forced out because X-Files was big and it had some small connection to that. Because as Harsh Realm showed, and what Breaking Bad was able to shake off from, having been linked to that show was not a sign of success for something.
This is an interesting analysis. I saw Space Above and Beyond when it was on TV. I have not seen it since then. I would love to re-watch it with my adult eyes. Like many other things, please do not re-boot this. I remember at the time being baffled that every episode had them switching between being pilots or infantry. I agree that it seemed divided between being a story about the "nipple necks" or a war story. It also seemed to have elements of the original Battle Star Galactica in it as well. Let's just cut our losses and make a new story.
Unfortunately, B5 is the one that will be (and, I believe, currently is being) rebooted - and it's precisely _because_ the original got 5 seasons, told a complete story, and (most importantly) left a devoted fanbase. That makes it superficially a safer bet for executives who are searching desperately for "safe" in a media environment that has seen so many high-profile failures in recent years that they've actually coined a new term, "flopbuster," to describe the phenomenon.
Unless the reboot is as good and as faithful to the original as the Fallout series, this fan will prefer the original, despite its flaws. There's just no way to replace Jurasik, Katsulas, etc. I never even saw Space:Above and Beyond aside from a commercial.
@@keithsavagelives agreed unless the original is heavily flaw in some way. cheap special effect. a lot of weak episode but overall a central solid premises. they will always be compare to the original and be view more harshly than a completely fresh show.
Your depth of knowledge in media, history, and philosophy is admirable. Your prose and presentation is quite enjoyable. I have watched about a dozen of your videos thus far and I can feel you gathering momentum toward a certain vision of political and economic life, but I am not sure what that is. It feels like it is in the orbit of classic American libertarian or perhaps Randian Objectivism or even Anarcho Capitalism. Do you have a video where you lay out your larger intellectual project?
I remember hearing of these two shows, but I watched "Third Rock from the Sun" instead. 😅 Harry especially was hilarious.
I could not agree more. I am sick of remakes of things that were good or great. We need more remakes of flawed things with good ideas to tease out. I think of the 80s B movie remakes such as The Thing or The Fly.
Both shows are amazing!
Or the Devil! Or perhaps, Rod Serling's ghost...
Babylon 5 doesn't need a reboot
SABAB does not need a reboot. It needs a sequel!
It's been 20-30 years. The war with the Chiggers wound down after a few years, but never really went away. It has become a dull background of unpleasantness, dragging on through small border skirmishes and territorial dispute raids. The sequel show would examine the effect of decades of normalizing warfare on a populace and their new recruits who have grown up always knowing peace despite having spent their entire lives "at war."
Also probably an episode about the failed withdrawal from Afghanistan.
good idea - this sequel i'd watch.
I agree with you on SAAB needing the reboot. The post 9-11 trope has been done to death with RDM Battlestar Galactica being the winner. Exploring the numbing, arrogant jingoism of that era would be welcome and, tbh, not explored enough in any media. Plus, maybe PTSD and other psychological effects of being a soldier in a capitalist/totalitarian society. Where one's self worth is measured by what one have's and "Are You Okay?" pandering. Yeah, and fascism.
I mourn Space: Above and Beyond at least once a month.
Also the writers of SAAB loved punk rock. X and the Ramones jammed into episodes. Imagine what could happen with Bad Religion and Pennywise shoe horned in. Sigh it's fun to dream.
I Agree 100%. SAAB is the one to reboot. Maybe even to diversify a bit. Dedicate characters to MI and fly boys, let the ground pounders butt heads with the flight jocks in the mess. Dedicate pilots to combat roles. Heck lets even take it one step further and make the infantry characters all be enlisted or at least NCOs and let the stick wagglers stay junior officers to create more tension and rivalry. If you want to stick with the WWII pacific type narrative that makes it even more fun. Allowing you to tell multiple intertwining stories about multiple groups of complex characters all interwoven together. I'd buy that for a dollar.
That's the show I want to see.
In Infantry units all the soldiers and NCOs are enlisted except for the Platoon Leader who is an officer.I was in infantry units on deployments to Iraq,but,we never had an officer as a platoon leader,it was usually an E-7.
No on the Reboot. Those are all turning up to be AWFUL these days.
They should have separated the groundside from the aviation side, but little brother only gets two episodes I guess. 💀
I'm a big Babylon 5 fan, but I never heard of Space: Above and Beyond. This video piqued my interest.
check on this plattform - all episodes are available ;)
Two of my favorite shows. No one should touch B5. I can’t imagine the degenerate filth would come out of modern Fox.
I really didn't want to know how the forever war ended...
A reboot of SAAB has a ton to pull from 20 years of GWOT.
GWOT?
@@hellacoorinna9995 Global War on Terror
@@hellacoorinna9995 Global War On Terror
@@hellacoorinna9995 Global War on Terror
@@hellacoorinna9995Global war on terror
Have you seen the animated series exo squad? It is quite mature for a kids show and has some interesting ideas.
So a SAAB reboot should start over or start from the original series end?
You’ve really converted me into a Space: Above-and-Beyond-head. So much so that I don’t even want to actually watch the show for fear of experiencing the same disappointments you did 😂
So much potential . . .
good video.
I remember watching and loving both of these shows, when they first aired.
Unfortunately, I have lived long enough to see a great many of their warnings go unheeded, and many of their authoritarian governmental problems become real.
I very much agree with your conclusions about why B5 succeeded and SAaB didn't, and I also agree that I'd rather see a Space remake than a B5 one. Alas, B5 has momentum, a track record of profitability, and interest from the central storyteller - and SAaB hasn't. So the B5 remake is probably going to go forward, and the Space one... is more dubious.
Did you have any opinions on Farscape?
It was by far the most engrossing of 90's scifi
"Deathwalker" was the best of B5. I identify with Jha'dur on so many levels.
Baron von Chigtoffen was cute.
I'd love to see what you have to say about Earth 2. I think that's another case of great premise/ good but neglected execution. And equally ripe ground for a topical reboot.
I was thinking of Earth 2 just the other day. I have only the vaguest memories of it, but I'm curious to give it a proper look.
It's worth a re-watch for three episodes of villan Tim Curry alone.
The rebooting failures can work very well if done right. There's an anime from the late 70's called Mobile Suit Gundam. One of the episodes was so bad it's not included in most ways to watch the series. What did they do, redid the episode into a pretty good movie a few years back. So it has been done, and can work very well.
SAAB could be awesome if done by the right people. But I think it's way too late now. It'll just be a rehashed "War bad, government evil" show with the hottest young rising stars if done now. And that's best case. But, if done well, and has four or five seasons and can actually tell the war well, it could be awesome. Say West becomes one of the pilots at the beginning and by the end he's earned a Squadron XO post. Or Hawkes winding up in spec ops. He's the character we follow at the beginning of a campaign since he's the one doing recon.
Could be amazing.
Babylon 5 is in my mind one of the best Sci-fi shows ever made even if it is very Star Trek-ish. Space Above and Beyond had flaws but a lot of promise and a good cast. I think both could have been great with a bit more money. Strangely I think to a modern audience Space holds up much better than Babylon 5, Seaquest, many episodes of the X files, or many movies of the era.
B5 has been done, and in parts done well.
SAAB seems like a franchise that’s kind of lost. Lots of elements that could be used, but no need to keep the bones or skin, just the heart and liver.
Let's split the difference, have JMS reboot Space: Above and Beyond.
How about Earth: Final Conflict?
Nice
I agree that SAaB is a pretty good candidate for a reboot. I actually disagree with come of your critique of the show. But it clearly didn't manage to do everything it could have. B5 told a whole story. It wasn't perfect, and a B5 reboot could be flashier and maybe even better. But I don't have a hole in my heart wondering what B5 would have been in season 2,3,4 as it got refined. SAaB is exactly that, a solid start of a first draft that left me wanting more. A reboot could really deliver on what the original never had the chance to do.
Networks tend to make the mistake of rebooting stuff that has no new ground to cover, just because the original was successful and people will recognize the name. Those sorts of reboots are pretty much never successful. But those middling successes are what should be the focus of a reboot. Battlestar Galactica was one of the greatest reboots of all time for exactly that reason. The OG had some fun bits and pieces, but it also had major issues and constraints and only one season, and it left the audience wanting more.
I watched SAAB when it first came out, and skipped B5 initially because compared to TNG, it looked kinda crappy.
It wasnt until a few years later when i got laid off, i started watching it on scifi out of boredom.
Once i got past the TOS vibe and odd CG, i became a total convert.
The storytelling was a bit of a revelation to me, and i didnt really follow ST much after that.
SAAB was great early, but they tried to tie together the "command level" and "grunt level" perspectives, and the story seemed to be trying to shoehorn too many arcs together. It was kinda jarring, and made it feel kinda all over the place.
What about a prequel for Babylon 5, set in times of Dilgar War? It could be grete examonation of Humanity rising from backward civilisation to one of the powers in our part of Galaxy.
As a B5 fan, i don't want a reboot: I want an Expanded Universe. Humanities first steps into the stars, The Dilgar War, Crusade done right, etc. Leave the core story alone.
How you talking about pasta as I'm eating pasta
Perhaps a continuation, like Star Trek TNG, instead of a Reboot would work better?
especially for Space: Above and Beyond.
for B5, series 5 and the "direct to dvd"-movies dried the possibilites of a continuation out. (even the ranger-movie - those knowing the dtd ...will be disappointed, no matter how good the show is)
Space Above and Beyond was just ok at best. The only really good original episode was the one mentioned here "Who Monitors the Birds". It was a cool concept with good story and made sense. The whole pilots and ground pounders combined was just stupid. I understand budget constraints of a TV show but they could have just split the characters between pilots and infantry and had them interact in some episodes when they ferried the infantry to a planet or in the mess hall and such. Babylon 5 was great story telling from start to finish. I agree that they could give Space Above and Beyond a reboot but with better writers and have a general over arching story for the series and not just Star Trek like single shows.
A reboot of SAAB would be good. Like the original Battlestar Galactica, it didn't get to reach its potential.
The problem of any reboot of Babylon 5, that I personally would find acceptable, is that so many of the actors have passed away. And I'm sorry, but I don't want to see any actors taking on roles that I identified with another. Mira Furlan was made for her role and she is only one of many. Please let B5 rest in peace as it is. It's all still available on DVD and streaming so what's the problem?
Imagine a actual official canon crossover between babylon 5 and space above and beyond
Now do DS9... also known as B5 Trek lol
No reboots that is the problem of shows these days they cannot enhance the story
Space Above & Beyond (SA&B) was inconsistent. To risk trained pilots as infanteers was always grating. Quite insane. Babylon 5, despite it's problems was near perfection in the round. While I would be concerned about either being remade for a modern audience, I would not mind SA&B getting another swing at it, with good writing that avoids presentism. I fear that would be beyond current writing rooms. A reboot of Babylon 5 would almost certainly detract. They could (very easily and almost inevitably) do worse than redo the show changing nothing but the CGI scenes. While that is never going to happen, the way the show was shot would make that easy.
I wish Marx had understood how important America would always be to vital achieving universal liberty
SAaB was not in the same league as B5. Far inferior sets, aliens, characters, actors and plot. I particularly hated the ridiculous way that the pilots were also marines. I really wanted to like it, but never missed it once it finished
I don't think any of these two series should be rebooted. B5 became cult. So did Space: Above and Beyond.
Especially with todays restrictions of things they can do and can't do, all the narratives that are force-fed into the storys; it would be a lost cause and just alienate (pun intended) fans of the original versions without gaining as many (or more) new ones to make the show work. As it happened with so many reboots in the recent years.
They'd never do Above and Beyond properly. The stories cut a little close to the bone.
Space: Above and Beyond died because of corporate politics, not anything inherent to the show.
Babylon 5 seems more a religious story than a merely politucal one.
Faith manages.
I hate to burst anyone's bubble prematurely. However these are just going to be woke written by a non experienced writer that will absolutely refuse to watch the source material because they are to good for that and will not allow it to influence their message they are going to be putting out.
And you dont think the originals was woke?????? lets see righwingers are wrong fascist bad, women can be in combat and do everything men can do and so on, YES THEY WHERE WOKE ALSO. Maybe stop hating women and stop being a rascist